Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-32503483-20170819064559/@comment-27535813-20170819084340

This thread should be in Pokemon Help, since General Discussion is used for wiki-related discussion.

I feel that you shouldn't use Toxapex.

1. Merciless and Venoshock is plain bad.

'''Why? 'Toxapex has really bad offensive stats, and the base power increase of Venoshock after poison and Merciless may seem overwhelming'', but is in fact, not going to dent a lot of things. This also leaves Toxapex completely unable to do anything to do steel types. You also need to poison an opponent first before you can even use Venoshock, given that it has any value on Toxapex anyway. It should also be noted you don't have a nature or EV investment in special attack.

2. Toxic Spikes and Toxic on the same set is pointless.

'''Why? '''Both offer the same utility, except 1 is an entry hazard and the other is an instant bad poison. Having both makes you really passive and that also means 1 of the 2 moveslots becomes useless once your opponent gets poisoned either by Toxic Spikes or Toxic. It hurts when Toxapex is already suffering from 4 moveslot syndrome.

3. EV Spread is ok, but could be better.

'''Why? '''Choose 1, have a mixed defensive set with more def EVs than sp.def, a physically defensive set(252 def EVs) or a specially defensive set(252 sp.def EVs). There is no real reason to run equally same EVs for defense and special defense, since it is more common to see physical wallbreakers or Pokemon that run Swords Dance/Dragon Dance(nasty plot, calm mind and etc are less common compared to those).

A Toxapex would be much better with regenerator, bold nature, roughly 192 def EVs and 64 sp.def EVs, scald and haze. This ensure Toxapex makes the most out of what it should be doing: tanking hits(good bulk in general), spreading status(burn chance from scald, toxic/toxic spikes poison) and PP stalling/walling things out(can heal with recover and upon switching, remove stat changes).